Big Ups, Small Beer

It hurts my soul that our books are available through Amazon. It's like that guilt from not recycling something or leaving an unnecessary light on.

This is a great quote from 'Books After Amazon' by Onnesha Roychoudhuri in the Nov/Dec issue of Boston Review:

"For small publishers Amazon provides unprecedented access to a larger audience of customers. The costs of reaching this audience can, however, outweigh the benefits. For Gavin Grant, keeping Small Beer Press afloat without slashing already-modest author royalties means making cuts in advertising and marketing budgets. Grant isn’t shy about Amazon’s role in keeping him in this tight spot: “If I meet a reader and they say, ‘I buy all your books through Amazon,’ I often say to them, ‘That’s great for Amazon, that’s great for the shipper. It does nothing for me, and it doesn’t do much for the author.’”

On a more chipper note, I'm obsessed with this band: